


Quality Assurance

by ConnorSimulator (floralstiel)



Series: Past Prejudice [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 05:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15308739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralstiel/pseuds/ConnorSimulator
Summary: Connor tests a new “dream” module from CyberLife.





	Quality Assurance

His legs couldn’t work. His legs couldn’t work and he needed to save Hank. He was hanging from a rooftop, calling Connor’s name, pleading for him to reach him. Connor dragged himself across the roof, as painstaking and slow as if under the crushing pressure of the depths.

“Connor!”

_I’m coming, Hank!_ Connor cried desperately.

“Connor, wake up!”

He gasped, eyes flying open and autofocusing on Hank’s worried features. Sumo was a warm weight at his feet, whining at the obvious distress in the room.

“H-Hank…? I…”

“You were dreaming,” Hank murmured, soothing the hair from Connor’s forehead, fingertips tripping through sweat. _Sweat_. His system had been overheating from his distress.

“I don’t…” Connor said, sitting up in bed and clutching at his face.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Hank soothed, pulling him closer. “The techs at CyberLife said this might happen. Flashes of memories manifesting as, uh…”

“Emotional feedback,” Connor answered, pleased that Hank had made the effort to remember and understand what was discussed at the appointment last week, when they had installed the “sleep” module in his existing biocomponent systems. It was their most ambitious project to date, some years in the making. Connor wasn’t the only android to test it until it was released as a general procedure for the population, but he was beginning to wonder over its merits.

Androids’ memories were already as perfect as their operating systems allowed; experiencing “dreams” during their artificial slumber just seemed like unnecessary stress. But dreaming held such romantic connotations, yet another step toward imitating human consciousness.

“Thank you for waking me,” Connor finally said. He’d calmed significantly though he felt clammy, shirt and briefs slightly damp from sweat.

“I’ll get you some water. Just sit up for awhile, alright?”

“That’s not necessary, I—”

“It helped me when I was younger, just trust me,” Hank said, already on his way to the door. Connor sighed and settled back against his pillow, staring down at Sumo’s saggy face.

“I bet you don’t have nightmares,” he murmured. Sumo huffed and resettled, shutting his eyes with a little sigh. Ridiculous, all animals had the capability of experiencing dreams, good or bad. Evolution had caught up with Connor, he would just have to deal with the consequences.

Hank returned with the glass of water and Connor took it, drinking when Hank stared at him expectantly. He wouldn’t admit it, but the cold refreshment helped, if only slightly, to bring him fully out of his post-nightmare haze.

“What was it, anyway? What would an android have a bad dream about?”

“Nothing that will ever happen,” was all Connor said in response, easing back into Hank’s arms. Very solid, warm, and real.

 

 

“Is this real?”

Hank turned to him, frown already deepening.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean? The hell you staring at anyway? Don’t you have evidence to catalogue, Ken doll?”

Connor blinked, dumbfounded. He glanced around, viewing the station, the officer androids in standby against the walls, officer Reed at his desk a few rows away…

No, that wasn’t correct. Gavin Reed had submitted his resignation in spectacular fashion some years ago now. He currently resides in Washington, DC, occupation: private security contractor.

“Well get a move on. Don’t wanna sit here looking at your dumb face…”

“Yes, lieutenant,” Connor replied, standing from his desk. This was not a memory, but he recognized it as a construct of memories. Hank’s initial hostility towards androids, the clear separation of android and human personnel, Reed’s presence; all true memories, but the dialogue was all wrong. He made his way to the archives, slowly, against a pressure as if moving underwater, reminiscent of his first dream. This wasn’t a good or bad dream, per se, so he was curious as to what his subconscious was attempting to convey.

He blinked awake some indeterminable amount of time later. Dreaming had the unfortunate side effect of interfering with his internal timing features, a bug, logging time spent in a dream as time spent in reality. It left him momentarily disoriented until he could recalibrate.

“Some dreams are like that,” Hank told him over breakfast, “they don’t really mean anything. Just your brain recycling old shit over and over.”

Connor poked at his eggs, unsatisfied.

 

 

“Connor…give me the gun.”

Connor blinked. He was in the precinct, his fellow officers were in varying states of shock or fear, taking cover behind desks and walls. Connor glanced down at his hand. He was armed. Hank’s sidearm.

“I…”

“Connor,” Hank prompted again. Connor immediately discharged the magazine and handed it over, ignoring the tremor in his hands as he did so. Hank placed it on his desk and immediately reached for his phone.

“No need, Hank,” Connor spoke, voice shaking as he lowered himself to his chair, staring at the surface of his desk. “I’m contacting CyberLife as we speak.”

Hank dropped his phone back on his desk, but stayed close until Connor was finished. Fowler was half out of his office, watching the two, scowl firmly in place. Since the revolution his treatment of Connor and other androids had softened, but Connor expected anyone would react with fear or suspicion if an android spontaneously drew a sidearm in the middle of a police station.

“I was dreaming. Sleepwalking? This entire time,” Connor murmured. He placed a hand over his eyes, desperately recalibrating his system. He glanced at the time on his desk: 9:45. His internal systems logged a time of 11:45; a two hour discrepancy.

“That dream upgrade is a buggy piece of shit and you knew it from the beginning. Thank god no one was hurt,” Hank replied. “But,” he continued, lighter, “guess that explains why you didn’t react to me giving you the finger over breakfast.”

“I’m hurt you didn’t notice sooner,” Connor said, feigning as close of a proximity to sadness he could on his features.

“Stop the puppy face, dipshit,” Hank chuckled, ruffling his hair. Their transport to CyberLife arrived soon after, and Fowler didn’t even give them the option—“Just get the hell out of my precinct and don’t come back till your plastic ass is fixed,” he’d sighed when Connor approached to apologize—they were unofficially on leave.

They rode the way to CyberLife in silence, the both of them staring out the windows as the city fell away to bare landscapes with the tower building in the horizon. The android techs removed the defective program, logging his experiences for further research and debugging. They didn’t apologize, and Connor didn’t expect them to.

“So no more dreams, huh?” Hank asked later, after they’d had a quiet but comfortable dinner. Connor was already in bed, sitting up and waiting as Hank undressed and joined him.

“For now, until they find a solution. I respectfully declined their request to test the update, after what happened today at work. I just…it didn’t…”

“You didn’t feel safe?”

“Not that,” Connor murmured against Hank’s lips as he leaned in for a kiss. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re all I have. I was frightened I’d lose you.”

“Jesus, you can’t just say shit like that,” Hank huffed, but he was smiling, blushing. Beautiful humanity.

“I love you, Hank.”

“I know kiddo. I love you too.”

Connor kissed him again. And when he slept, he didn’t dream.

**Author's Note:**

> I like a Connor that admires/emulates some aspects of humanity, but might not necessarily enjoy all of them.


End file.
